i would have liked it if this had offered a COVID perspective on communal baths. i'm inclined to think that a hot moist environment is a likely place for it to flourish, and it seems odd to neglect to mention that three years of a pandemic probably had an outsize impact on the number of bathhouses still open in 2022

obviously we probably don't have a ton of data on how to circulate air and filter COVID out of bathhouses, but i also bet there's a way to do it in a relatively energy efficient way

anyways, it feels like a major spot that's lacking in an otherwise informative and well thought out read

that's YOUR union, go get involved and fix it!

even unions are gonna eventually fall to corruption and laziness if ppl think they'll solve your problems for you

the union IS you (and your coworkers)

really good thoughts and write up that you linked, thanks

yeah having read the thread, i'm inclined to agree you come across as someone trying to pick a fight, when you have a semantic disagreement with them at most

i understand that you found what they wrote triggering and harmful, but i don't think you were very kind with your posts. i feel like, in your haste to protect trans people, you were not considerate of the human being you were actually speaking to

i know you're not a member of beehaw, but you're posting it to our instance, so that's the standard i'm applying

if you had empathized with them (her?) that they sometimes need a space where they can just be a person, instead of being trans (or a woman or however abigail identifies), they (she?) might have been more receptive to your point

it also would have helped if you had been direct to the point - for example: "hey, would you mind saying "i don't like debates around my fundamental rights to exist" (or whatever alternative) as opposed to saying "i don't like politics"? this way you still allow space for discussion of important matters related to human rights, while clearly communicating what it is you dislike" (this is my best understanding of your point, but hopefully you can see how to tailor it to better represent what you truly want to express)

as it is, you spent like five posts nitpicking semantics when you knew what was intended and could have just directly stated what you disagreed with

and if you didn't know, well... i guess this is a reminder that words don't mean the same thing to everyone, and your definitions aren't necessarily more valid than someone else's

ultimately, you were argumentative with someone who was absolutely not advocating for transphobia, and policing someone's language without even making the barest effort to engage with what they were actually saying. in both the original poster's position, and in the admin's position, i completely get why they reacted how they did

i don't personally agree with your point, but i hope these recommendations help you more clearly communicate it, and foster healthier interactions about it, in the future

idk dawg this seems pretty sound according to the article

The FDA and its advisors identified flaws in the design of the clinical trials, missing data, and a variety of biases in people involved with the trials, including an alleged cult-like support of psychedelics. Lykos is a commercial spinoff of the psychedelic advocacy nonprofit Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS).

FDA advisors also noted the public allegations of a sexual assault of a trial participant during a Phase II trial by an unlicensed therapist providing the MDMA-assisted psychotherapy.

...

On Saturday, using the existing data and scientific literature to support MDMA therapy got a little more difficult for Lykos. The journal Psychopharmacology posted retraction notices for three studies that involved Phase II clinical data of the therapy. The studies included a 2019 rationale for a Phase III trial design, a 2020 pooled analysis, and a 2020 study on how antidepressant use may affect the response to MDMA therapy.

The retraction notice cited two reasons for the retractions, including "protocol violations amounting to unethical conduct" at one of the clinical trial sites—a reference to the sexual assault allegations—and undisclosed conflicts of interest by the authors.

like. these are pretty good reasons for not going ahead. it's on lykos and the scientists running the trials for not keeping their paperwork straight and, you know, not warning people about the risks of the study

from an article cited within (https://qz.com/1809184/psychedelic-therapy-has-a-sexual-abuse-problem-3):

A few years ago, a therapist working in a MAPS MDMA study publicly spoke about his challenges dealing with a patient’s sexuality. Early in his career, Richard Yensen was working with a “lovely young lady who became very sexualized in her relationship around the [MDMA] sessions,” he told an audience at California Institute of Integral Studies in 2016. “It got so intense,” said Yensen, that the chair of his department saw him mid-therapy session and told him to leave the room, warning him to always have another therapist alongside him during sessions. “And thank god, because she became more and more and more activated sexually,” said Yensen. “I don’t think I could have handled it.”

Not long after, Yensen was accused of sexually assaulting a PTSD patient, Meaghan Buisson, during a MAPS clinical trial on MDMA

like. even GENEROUSLY assuming that nothing truly unethical happened. this is a huge issue that will only get worse if it's made publicly available

i'm not taking a position on whether or not it should be made available as a treatment. i don't know and i'm not qualified to determine that. but given what's been said, it feels reasonable to want more data and perhaps go "hey think you could run a trial without getting accused of assaulting people?"

i would have appreciated hearing how the author, personally, found capitalized pronouns to be affirming, because, absent that reasoning, it really does seem like it's to set up a deferential power dynamic. i don't really mind respecting the pronouns anyways, but it does mean i don't really want to be friends with Them until i understand what's going on there better

it's crazy how those comments are aging like milk precisely because google/web search is going to shit (in addition to being dickhead comments ofc)

just weird to look back and think about how we thought it would never change

huge Ws, excellent work

also, thanks for the Mastodon link, i wasn't sure where to check on beehaw status during the outage

idk this story really wants to paint the duplex lady as sympathetic, but she's living the high life to have an entire separate house attached to hers to do what she pleases with. i don't really feel bad that she can't make money off airbnb with it, she can still exploit people make money off it by having long term tenants. you know, like she wasn't just arbitrarily taking an entire housing situation off the market. sure, she's not as much of a problem as big corpos making bank on airbnb, but i fully feel like she's more in that category than not

i'm open to hearing other opinions on this, though. i've never lived in a duplex. maybe they're really intimate with consideration to the other people living there? but from my view, this seems just like someone who owns two apartments and is now upset they can't get their airbnb slice of the pie for the other one

it's highly personal, so ideally you ask the individual and include their consent in your article. that said, generally speaking, trans people will use their current pronouns, even referring to their pre-transition selves. this is also what's generally considered polite if you don't know them, so it's pretty suspect that the article is not doing that

still, something about malice and incompetence....

i appreciate this link but i still don't understand what this meme in particular is referencing :')

suicidal ideation is a common coping mechanism for feeling trapped. i think saying it like this helps because it draws a clear line of causality; you feel trapped -> you feel suicidal. i don't think this accounts for 100% of cases, but from both research and experience, it seems fairly common

this also seems to apply to how you're feeling. it seems like you feel trapped in regard to two situations; one, your job, and two, your anhedonia (fancy word for "can't feel happy")

suicidal ideation is, in my opinion, a sign you need to seriously reconsider your consent about your current life. here's a personal example to illustrate this: when i was a couple of years into college, i was passively suicidal from working myself so hard all the time and not doing anything to enjoy myself. i had to take a step back, and seriously reconsider two things: one, that i had never given myself the choice of doing anything other than college (my parents simply insisted i did, and i had no better plans); and two, that nothing in college was worth burning myself out for, and that i needed to set aside time to enjoy myself, the mounting pile of homework be damned. this addresses consent in two ways: the first, that i hadn't consented to this path in life (and was now, retroactively, giving myself the opportunity to either drop out or continue), and the second, that i wouldn't consent to a life where i was only working and never enjoying myself

so i feel like, following this train of logic, it works out to a problem you can solve with your job (how can you get to a place where you have the time to engage with things you enjoy? do you need to scale back your hours? do you get paid enough to use money to offset the hours you'd have to put into cooking / cleaning / etc? can you put extra time in upfront so you can have more time off later? etc)

anhedonia is a little tougher, because it's hard to know if it's caused by the situation. i would try to improve your situation with your job and see if it improves. if it doesn't, you should look into seeing a psychiatrist (and also maybe a therapist). anhedonia is a common symptom as a result of being in a prolonged fight/flight state, which i imagine has gone along with your job stress. however, you may have trouble coming out of it on your own, even with the job stress sorted. regardless, please keep in mind that it is not a permanent problem. your joy will return to you in time

other things you can do in the meantime are to practice deep breathing exercises, try to exercise in general (yoga is especially good for this kind of thing), take some walks outside in nature, try to be present in the moment and in your body

but i think it really just shakes out to making life worth living for yourself, which i definitely believe that you can achieve. it may take time, it may be difficult, but knowing that's where that time and effort will lead makes that struggle worth enduring

there's been a recent meme of responding to people making any remarks related to the ps5/ps5 pro by saying "notice how they're X instead of playing games on the ps5", with the implication that the ps5 has no games

e.g. notice how they're arguing online about the ps5 instead of playing games on the ps5

it's not a very serious bit (since obv people can do more than one thing) but it's also funny because it's purposely being obtuse about the situation

this is a pretty good article covering the contract and noting that it's only an agreement with WGA (not SAG-AFTA) but i want to correct one point they make:

No. TV and film production doesn’t happen overnight, and while it will likely ramp up rapidly once the actors come back to work, the lengthy strike has caused inevitable delays and hiccups.

the delays have been caused by greedy execs who were literally hoping to starve their writers out instead of granting them contractual protections and paying them fairly

the execs have caused these delays and ultimately cost their corporations far more than what they'd have lost just agreeing to this contract in the first place

don't forget that point. everything sucks because of shitty execs. nothing but greed and reluctance to acknowledge worker power was stopping them from coming to the table four months ago

we need unions and unions need better protections than "can't prevent layoffs". unions need to make these painful for the company too

game developers need to unionize yesterday

wow that's crazy, workers have standards for themselves and now the bosses can't push us around and force us back to the office? wonder what would happen if we had those standards for more things...

i think this is somewhat presumptive. that 95% figure comes from a world where the representation wasn't very good. a lot of people didn't know that being gay was a thing, and a lot of people still don't know that being gay is a thing they can be

we can't really know what those numbers would be in a truly accepting world, which is exactly why representation matters. even if it's "disproportionate"

it's not federated or open, but cohost is a tumblr-alternative run by a group of queer devs who promise not to sell the company or your data. i don't blame you if you don't buy into it, but i do like the platform

https://cohost.org/rc/welcome

edit: based on what /u/FaceDeer@kbin.social has mentioned about the TOS, as well as further elaboration i found in a thread about it (https://twitter.com/rahaeli/status/1588769277053739010), i don't think i can responsibly advocate for cohost, even as a closed/private alternative to tumblr

stop telling people. it's counterintuitive, but you lose some motivation that way

i mean, i can't promise that doing that will get you to finish them, but it should help a little bit

this is interesting to me. i recently met, and subsequently turned down, a local communist party. after some interrogation, i realized that, much like organizing folks in my workplace, i wanted the work i did with them to directly benefit the people of my community. they were very much about recruitment ("waiting for the next event where capitalism radicalizes a bunch of people") and learning theory (... which i respect to a certain extent), with a distinct emphasis on doing things other than community building / mutual aid / etc. they're also mentioned as one of the not-great groups (RCA)

i guess i'd like to know which groups are doing that important community building / solidarity building / organization education outreach? there's a mutual aid group in my area i'd like to become involved with at some point, at least

to a certain extent, i also want to know if my criteria for judging a group is good (or, if you agree, i suppose) - i've always thought that the worth of a group (here, meaning, a group meant to change things in the world for the better) is measured in the lives they've changed. but i can't prove that, obviously, it's just what i've arrived at based on my experience of the world, and i'm curious what others think

fundamentalism is a coping mechanism for a deregulated nervous system

........... YEAH. YEAH THAT. THAT'S WHAT I'VE BEEN TRYING TO SAY

(i've been thinking about this a lot and never could quite put it into words this eloquently)

for those in america, CWA, Communication Workers of America, is a union that's trying to reach out to the developers in the game industry

it's insane to me that someone could understand the ramifications of trauma on neurobiology and conclude that free will doesn't exist

i feel like, without free will, no one would ever escape their trauma. without saying something shitty and uncompassionate like "you're only held back by your trauma because you're not strong willed enough"; that's not true at all

but i think, at it's core, healing from trauma requires two things: a person who you feel safe enough to trust, and the willingness to take the leap and trust again

if you don't have one or the other, you're going to really struggle

and that moment where you choose to trust, how can you see that as anything but free will? when everything about your past, your nerves, your biology is screaming at you to do otherwise?

i dunno. i don't think any of us would have grown past our trauma at all without free will

that said, i think there's also just too much going on in the brain to conclude there's no free will for sure. i guess that's not the same as saying it's deterministic, which you can't really say, because physics gets too fucking weird at low levels, right?

anyways, i guess we can never really definitively say whether free will exists or not. but i think you can still make very strong arguments for being compassionate to poor people / traumatized people / people with mental illness / etc without saying we all don't have free will. it feels a lot like saying we're all doomed to be what we were made to be and we can't make a better life for ourselves

it just starts with convincing people, and believing, that we all deserve that

lmao, ironically your comment reminded me that there are nulloplasties as well, which would be a cool option to see represented, as well as various intersex options...

ahem more to your point, though. while they currently have a very limited effect on gameplay, it doesn't mean that they will never have an effect on gameplay. for example, one small thing that the devs of bg3 could do is have your bedmates remark on your genitals to you (i am being VERY presumptuous here that they don't, but i would be VERY surprised if i was wrong). anywhere from remarks about it not being what they expected, to them saying they had a good time anyways, etc

it doesn't necessarily need to be gratuitous because interactions with genitals aren't necessarily gratuitous. maybe you learn another party member had the same surgery as you or something, y'know. or you run into the surgeon who did your bottom surgery on your quest

there's a lot more we could be doing, than we currently are

preach sib (i do not know your gender identity)

i also love testosterone

i do it weird and put it on before bed, but it's always a high point of my night

also it's making me so big and strong!~

hey, fellow cowbee. i feel like your tongue in cheek comment could have been clearer about being tongue in cheek, especially since you had at least three people read it and pause (two commenters and myself)

i appreciate you were trying to be glib, but it's not always obvious to everyone on the internet. it might be worth clarifying that in your posts going forward to avoid these sorts of misunderstandings (e.g. adding a /s or "just to be clear, this is tongue in cheek")

you're accusing the commenter of needing to take a deep breath, but i feel like you could honestly take that same advice. you're really coming off as needlessly combative here, but as far as i can tell, you're the one who signed up for the instance where the core tenet is "be(e) nice". if that means something to you, i think you really ought to consider whether or not you're representing that with your posts

do you have a better alternative than rumble? i'm assuming, from context, it's worse than youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzICMIu5zFY

for anyone who doesn't understand what this is referencing

i had to ask a friend after sensing the power in this meme lmao

ah, i see. i'm sorry that school is so rough for you

how long do you have left? what are your goals after school? before you can plan what actions you want to take, you should figure out a tentative plan for the future so you know what you're working towards. i would recommend enlisting the aid of a trusted adult for this

i'm unfamiliar with the french system of education; is it possible to drop out and take a certification that is equivalent of graduating? (generally, in the US, this would be frowned upon, but would be worth it if the situation is as bad as you're describing, i think)

all that said, you likely can coast and do minimal work and at least graduate. if you're being harassed by someone, you should report them / tell them to stop / basically go out of your way to avoid them, or cause problems that are clearly their fault (although that can be difficult). it may also be worth talking to said trusted adult about this issue

teachers being vapid is pretty much out of your control, but just because they're vapid doesn't mean the material is. if you take an interest in learning things for the sake of learning, and digging beyond what they give you in school, you can at least attain valuable knowledge about the various subjects of your classes

this is part of what i learned in school myself; even though you're forced to be in school, you're the only one responsible for if you learn something or not. so learn the ways you are able to and get what you can out of the environment. maybe french high school is super difficult, but you seem like you have a good head on your shoulders. you should be able to learn stuff well enough to pass

still practice the breathing, exercising, etc that i mentioned, though. this:

And right now, I’m so fed up this existence of student, trapped in the petulent academic system that I can even focus anymore. I can’t think, I can’t write, I can’t remember.

sounds like you losing your executive functioning to stress. your anger at the situation is valid, but you need your brain to be online to cope with it and get out. take a step back, breathe in, hold. release as slowly as you can. repeat

try to notice when you're spiraling with emotion, try to remember to breathe when you are. it's hard at first but over time you'll notice it quicker and be able to respond in the moment

you'll make it out one day. just focus on getting there

rather than talk about my experience, i tend to think it's more helpful to have cisgender people imagine themselves in similar hypothetical situations:

1. imagine everyone in your life started using she/her pronouns for you. how would this make you feel? how does this affect how you react to them? how does this affect how they react to you?

2. imagine you woke up in a female body. how would you feel? imagine you had to adjust to it for a week. then a month. then a year. then ten years. what adjustments to your life would you have to make? how does this affect how people treat you? how does this affect your behavior? how would you feel about this situation? what would you miss about your previous body?

the second experience is essentially what it's like to be a transgender man, except it's from birth and you don't (necessarily) get to start with the knowledge you're a guy (some people more intuitively figure it out than others)

these questions hopefully help you develop a sense of what gender means to you, which should help you understand what gender means to us (obv it's not the same for everyone, and it's pretty binary, but it's a decent starting point)

sleep with wrist guards on. the kind with the metal plates in em, that keep your wrist tilted back a bit. both hands. uncomfortable at first but easily the best long term investment for your wrists you can make (this applies for your thumb too, it's all connected)

the fact your thumb is going numb is pretty worrisome. if you can, baby it in the shower hot water and massage it. or alternate running hot and cold water on it (4 min hot, 1 min cold). stretch it, your wrists, arms and shoulders (it's all connected). look up nerve glides and do those as well

i went to wrist pt for a while, this is all stuff i learned from it. hope it helps, seems like you're covered on feet/leg stuff

i like the way you think. i was just thinking they could throw in a "androgenized vulva" and "estrogenized penis" models and call it a day. their options (in bg3) hardly represent the spectrum of possibilities even for cis people, and a couple models aren't that much investment

BUT, what you suggested is much better. and i bet it could leverage existing technology we already have for resizing / interpolating facial features (with some adaptation). it's definitely tech companies are investing in already

no, i think the cost actually isn't that high, but i think the stigma (genitals lol) and lack of awareness are the bigger hurdles around it

not really qualified to comment on protein needs; although, as a growing boy putting on muscle, needing more wouldn't really surprise me

but, from what i do know about nutrition, i'm bothered that no one seemed to consider the ratio of protein to carbs/fats. i think you'll need more protein if your energy needs aren't being met by carbs or fats. protein isn't really a preferential energy source for us, and i could easily imagine people having issues with protein absorption if they're not receiving adequate energy from the other macros

also, on a personal note, it sucks how difficult it is to get clean, environmentally friendly protein and fat that doesn't have milk or soy in it. as someone who does keto, there's basically no brand out there who does meat substitutes right except for Beyond, which is free of allergens (although i'm sure there are a few people who are allergic to pea protein out there) and doesn't add a bunch of carbs

i need to put more research into substituting whey protein, since it seems like no amount of ingested lactase entirely prevents digestive issues with it. but i'm confident it can be done, with the bonus of being more environmentally friendly. i've gotten a recommendation to use rice and pea protein, so it's just a matter of going out of my way to get some

also, don't forget that CORPORATIONS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR 70% OF GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS. not to say individual choices don't help, but they're a minority contribution

i'm also interested in this. particularly within gaming, lame has a specific connotation of referring to "anti-fun" strategies in a derogatory way that's hard to replace (things like camping, cheap strats, spamming, etc). but, for similar reasons as to what you've outlined, i'd like to substitute it

but otoh i wonder if we're kind of settling on what language is acceptable for derogatory use and what isn't. the r word is not okay, but dumb/stupid is, even though they're technically the same origin. perhaps lame falls into the same category? i haven't seen anyone overly upset over it's use, anyways

what a blast from the past

it doesn't touch on transition or related things, afaik, aside from allowing you to freely select both your appearance and your genitals (afaik). so it's hard to say what it has or doesn't have available

that said, i feel like... you lose something with "perfect" transition. for example, in a world where you could remove breast tissue without scarring, i might still have a double mastectomy, because my transness is part of who i am. obviously, there are people who would love to have that, and that's great for them and they're not less trans for it. but i think there's a beauty in "imperfect" transition

i feel odd about feeling this way, though. almost certainly, medicine and technology will progress to the point where trans people will be indistinguishable from cis people. and i'm sure, at that point, these ideas will be considered backwards or coping or whatever...

anyways. i guess this is a long winded way to say, pathfinder/2e may have the nicer and more expedient options, but they're also maybe not as interesting

in case you're like me and didn't know, PFAS refer to per- and polyflyoroalkyl substances, which seem to be correlated with negative health outcomes (re: developmental problems, cancer, fertility issues, etc) and are particularly tricky because they take a long time to break down.

they're highly hydrophobic substances used in e.g. teflon. their use has decreased as we've come to understand their harms more, but we're still dealing with the results of their high usage from the past. certain industries seem to still use it (stain repellants, polishes, paints, coatings)

oh that's crazy, i saw that syntax (from my client) and went, no way that's correct (bc of the empty square brackets). but it being alt text makes it make sense, thanks!

looks like my alt text is breaking it for me tho (it's removed in the above embedding)

this is an interesting study to see. it's a survey of mortality among japanese men and women and how their diets correlate with causes of death

personally, i'm not sure i find this a compelling argument against keto for men. their finding is increased mortality if their carbohydrate intake is <40% of their total energy expenditure. 40% is a pretty high bar for keto, where you're looking to be at 5% at most (at most, 20g of carbs a day = 80 calories; 2000/80 comes out to be about 4%)

so probably, a lot of these people aren't in keto, which i would consider a clinically relevant distinction (we don't know for sure, since the nuances of the population's eating habits weren't published)

second, i don't know that i would want to try keto in japan? like, i don't know what their fat sources are, but... if i ate enough fish to sustain myself on keto, i'd get fucked up by mercury. and like... idk how much better it is? but a lot of my food comes from beef and dairy, which i don't think are as commonplace there (i know it's bad for the environment. i know. i know. i don't want to starve though. i'm sorry)

i'm not that educated on how food looks in japan. but it strikes me as very keto unfriendly. depending, this might be a huge factor, or a minor one, but it's hard to say without clarification

anyways, it's an interesting post from a transmasc point of view. i originally fled carbs while running on estrogen. i feel like i tolerate them better (not well, per se) on testosterone. there's a definite challenge on keto to eat enough calories on testosterone, especially now that i work out and i'm trying to build a considerable amount of muscle

but at the end of the day, i still feel better on keto, and now that i've figured out how to reliably provide like 3k calories in fat, i'm doing pretty well